Word: dial-up
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...dial-up modem speeds, however, it's more like Click-N-Crawl. Lindows tries its best to act friendly and look Windows-like, but right now it's hard to use for half an hour without a lot of jargon about the root directory and other comp-sci stuff appearing on the screen. It will run a lot of Windows programs - games being the major exception. (Robertson has backed off earlier claims that his system is entirely Windows compatible.) Basically, Lindows is a work in progress. Stand by for the final release...
...situation is serious enough, however, that Case says he will rely more heavily on his founding fraternity to set the company right. AOL's cash cow is its 26 million U.S. subscribers, most of whom pay $23.90 a month for AOL's dial-up service. Almost half of that subscription revenue represents pure profit. But the U.S. dial-up market is already close to 60% saturation and isn't expected to hit 70% before 2005. AOL subscriber growth this year is estimated to drop to about 10%, just a third of its torrid pace...
...division's long-term-growth gambit is to attract as many of its dial-up customers as possible into the promised land of broadband, where they would pay more--eventually as much as $200 a month, in Pittman's rosy scenario--for a variety of on-demand services, from wireless instant messaging to the ability to listen to Norah Jones or watch A Beautiful Mind anytime they like...
...offer easy access to premium content such as movies and music on demand, not enough customers will pay even the $55 a month it charges today for its broadband service. Those who do--the early adopters--are actually cutting into AOL profits. Every time one of its dial-up customers shifts to broadband, the AOL service goes from a nearly 40% profit margin to one potentially as low as 10%--mainly because it has to share broadband revenue with cable partners...
...pass my hands over my computer like a magician's assistant: Look, no wires! I access a website that lets me benchmark my download speed; it clocks in at 2,920 kbps, comparable to my home cable-modem connection and 55 times as fast as the standard 56K dial-up modem. This is impressive. Heartened, I head off to my next destination: Pasadena and two free NANS (neighborhood access networks) operated by private users for the public good. I am filled with good cheer and the promise of a wireless future...